


Bygones

by anonymous_moose



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Action, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Family Drama, Found Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-07 00:56:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14069406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymous_moose/pseuds/anonymous_moose
Summary: Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.Taako disappears. Lucretia receives a letter. Some grudges can only be ended through conflict.





	1. Ultimatum

The glass sphere quickly decelerated as it passed through the boughs and branches of the evergreens, coming to a stop a few feet above the forest floor. Lucretia removed her hand from the brake with a slow exhale; she shouldn’t worry so much, really. Avi may have retired, but the Bureau’s new cannoneer was equally skilled, if a bit anxious.

She popped open the side door and stepped out into the clearing. It was the safest spot for a landing, and the closest to the coordinates she’d been given. A soft green moss grew everywhere, from the sides of the trees to the earth beneath her feet to the rocks and boulders and deadfall that formed a rough path to the north, up a nearby hill.

It was late in the year, and the sun was setting. The air was crisp and cold, and bit into her lungs when she breathed. This was far from civilization, deep in the Far Reaches to the east, a space of caves and barrows that few people tread and even fewer lived. Even the Bureau had to go out of their way to drop her off here – overhead, the second moon drifted slowly away, to return only when she signaled on her bracer.

Lucretia shut the sphere door. As the balloon popped from the top and began to inflate, she checked her farspeech stone. All the runes were dim, the river-smooth texture dark and inactive. Poor signal, she wondered? Or something else?

She stuffed it in the pocket of her robe and put it out of her mind. She’d deal with that problem later. From another pocket, she removed the letter that had brought her here.

_Lucretia,_

_East of the Fens, at the barrow marked by the crescent moon. Come alone. Tell no one._

What followed was a set of numbers, langitude and longitude, and a signature. Not that she needed one; the smooth, looping handwriting was impossible to mistake.

Lucretia tucked the letter back into her inner pocket and, with one last steadying breath, started on the path up the hill, towards the barrow.

Whatever this was, whatever was going on, she would face it without reservation. She had only one concern.

She hoped Taako was alright.

* * *

 

“Missing?”

“I’m honestly not sure,” Kravitz said over the stone. “He said he’d be a few days, but he hasn’t called. He always calls.”

“Always?”

“Always.”

Lucretia leaned back in her high-backed chair. “And you thought I’d know where he was?”

“I thought you’d be in the best position to find him. Discreetly.”

“Discreetly?”

Kravitz sighed, breath tinny and harsh through the stone. “If it’s nothing, he wouldn’t want everyone worried. Angus in particular.”

“If it’s nothing.”

“Madame–”

“No, I understand,” Lucretia said. “I’ll have some people look around. Quietly.”

“Thank you,” Kravitz said, sounding at least somewhat relieved. “Call me if you learn anything. I’ll do the same.”

“Certainly.”

Lucretia thumbed the rune on her stone and set it aside. She’d talk to a few Seekers, ask them to look around Taako’s usual haunts in the major city-states. Maybe he just needed a break. It wasn’t entirely unlike Taako to ghost on everyone; back on the Starblaster, there were cycles no one except Lup saw him for weeks at a time. Usually when he was going through a particularly miserable bout of existential ennui.

Of course, that was decades ago. And this time Lup hadn’t heard from him either.

Lucretia tried not to worry. Taako could take care of himself, even Kravitz knew that. She’d wait a few days, and if her Seekers didn’t find anything, she’d make this a priority.

* * *

 

The letter came the next day. Delivered by a postman from Greenhold and postmarked from a village on the edges of the Far Reaches. The Bureau set a course due east, and she began to gather her things. Lucretia didn’t know what was going on. Better to be prepared than not.

She left a note on her desk, alongside the letter she’d received, detailing the situation. She put on a pair of comfortable boots and some hiking trousers beneath her robes, took an extra cloak in case it got cold. And she put a gift from Merle around her neck, something for her birthday that she hadn’t had cause to wear until then.

On the way down, her hand on the brake lever, a bad feeling started to worm its way into her gut.

No, she didn’t know what was going on. But whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

* * *

 

The barrow looked like it hadn’t seen a visitor in centuries. Ivory-white stone ruins rose up out of the hill above and the ground below, chipped and cracked and covered in moss and vines. They framed the mouth of the cave, marked with a crescent moon on the arch above. Inside, patches of white showed through the earthen walls and floor like bones. They were ancient, long-forgotten like the rest of the ruins in the hills of the Reaches.

Lucretia conjured a light over her shoulder. It cast a bright cone ahead as she descended the pale steps, worn smooth by time and the elements. As she got further inside, the cave grew wider until she emerged into a large natural chamber, stalagmites as tall as her pointing up towards a vaulted ceiling. There was no trace of civilization this deep, no stonework or sarcophagi or any indication as to this particular barrow’s purpose.

“Taako?” she called out, and instantly felt stupid. This was a trap. She knew it, had known it for a while, but she’d come anyway. “Taako. I got your letter.”

A clattering, above and to her right. Lucretia spun, and her light spun with her.

He stood at the top of a small rocky outcropping, halfway to the high ceiling, the dark behind him leading deeper into the barrow. His eyeliner was faded, and his clothes were rumpled like he’d slept in them, but he didn’t look rested. His hair needed a brush, his braid was starting to come loose, and there was something about his eyes… was his glamour gone?

“Taako?”

He smiled, not icy as she’d come to expect, but cruel and hateful. “Hi,” he said.

Then he raised his umbrella.

“Bye.”

And he cast Disintegrate.


	2. Contempt

Lucretia barely got a Wall of Force up in time. She flinched as the spell splintered and spider-webbed, shattering like glass. When she lowered her arms, Taako was gone.

A tickle at the back of her mind. Traces of arcana, ethereal – she spun on her heel.

“Too slow!” Taako shouted, swinging his umbrella like a bat and sending Lucretia flying with a wave of telekinetic force. She landed hard and tumbled backward onto her knees.

Taako advanced slowly, thin trails of flame forming at the tip of his staff. “You were always slow, Lu,” he said with a vicious grin as he cast the Fireball forward.

For a moment, Lucretia’s world was fire. As it faded, patches of still burning ground and embers at her feet, she lowered her Shield.

“What are you doing, Taako?” she asked calmly.

“What I shoulda done a long time ago,” he said, and then fired two Scorching Rays. Lucretia counterspelled them both, swatting them aside. The embers they left behind as they hit the ground illuminated more of the empty cavern in flickering orange.

“Why now?” she asked, watching him closely. “Why here?”

“Why not?” Taako retorted, charging forward. He dragged his hand across the umbrella, setting it aglow with Magic Weapon, and swung hard.

Lucretia ducked the first, sidestepped the second, and took a spell to the chest as Taako ducked his hand under his arm and fired a Lightning Bolt. Again, she landed on her back. Taako loomed over her with that cruel smile and those hateful eyes, sparks coming off the tip of his staff.

He swung down, and she Blinked, emerging seconds later off to his left. He tried to catch her with another bolt, but she was ready for it and it impacted off her Shield with a thunderous crack.

_Not like him to get in close. He’s trying to trip me up. Have to keep away._

Taako flicked his wrist and disappeared. Lucretia focused in on his arcana. Not ethereal. Something else. Illusory.

She purposefully looked away, and when she felt him draw upon another spell, she countered with one of her own.

A shimmering bubble snapped into existence around Taako, and his spell fizzled out. He bellowed in frustration and smacked his umbrella against the walls.

“That’s enough,” she said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Taako cackled, wild-eyed. “Rich! Real fuckin’ rich!”

“Taako–”

“You hurt me, I hurt you,” he said bitterly. “Eye for an eye. It’s only fair.”

Lucretia frowned. The thud of her heart in her chest started to hurt. “Is this really how it has to go?”

“It’s how it was always going to,” he bit out. “And you were stupid for thinking otherwise.”

The tip of his umbrella began to glow green. Lucretia didn’t move.

“Maybe I was,” she said. “But I don’t think so.”

“Shut up!” Taako screamed, baring his teeth. His umbrella glowed brighter. “Stop standing there like you know what’s gonna happen!”

“You want me to cry?” she asked, backing up. “Cower?”

Taako said nothing. Lucretia reached up and lifted Merle’s gift off her neck. She swung the leather cord around her hand, and the round pendant landed in her palm with a satisfying smack.

“I don’t cower,” she said, raising the blessed arcane focus in her hand. It glowed a bright silver-blue. “But you know that, don’t you?”

Taako hissed something through his teeth and cast another Disintegrate, cracking apart the bubble with a sound like breaking glass. He charged forward with a furious yell, swinging his umbrella madly, casting missiles and bolts which curved and flew with vicious purpose.

This time, Lucretia was ready. His spells broke against her Shield like water on rock. When Taako closed distance, he struck it with his staff like a club, over and over, flames trailing from each swing as fire began to spew from the tip and spill against the barrier. Each strike rang out like a bell, sending cinders flying. Taako raised his other arm and conjured Bigby’s Hand, glowing a neon green as it too began to strike again and again, fist squeezed tight.

Lucretia watched him calmly, arm extended. It didn’t make sense. Taako didn’t act like this, didn’t fight like this. His fury was a cold and focused thing. She’d never seen him lose control, spitting expletives as he spelled with all his might.

“You took everything!” he screamed over the roar of the flames, striking the Shield again and again. “Everything good! Everything that mattered!”

Bigby’s Hand now wrapped itself around and tried to crumple Lucretia’s barrier like a tin can while Taako charged up the beginnings of a Sunburst. The arcana surged off him, a white hot star in her mind, swirling around the cave in a hurricane. It would have knocked any wizard on their heels.

But Lucretia wasn’t any wizard, because that’s when she felt it. Something else in the whirlwind.

Lucretia crossed her forearms and pulled them apart. Her Shield dispelled with a sudden explosion of force, and Bigby’s Hand vaporized. A thrust of her palm sent Taako flying through the air. He landed much the same way she had earlier, and rolled onto his knees with a snarl.

He wouldn’t allow her time to stall, so she didn’t bother. Lucretia surged forward, faster than he expected, and smacked him with another wave of force before firing a Ray of Frost from her focus. The first caught him cleanly, the second he blocked with an open umbrella. A quick pulled of her hand and a Gust of Wind from behind Taako yanked the staff from his hands, sending it off into a far corner of the chamber. A flick of her wrist and she flew towards him, and Taako barely had time to react before she struck him hard in the nose. Taako stumbled backward, and with one last motion of her hand, the ground beneath him turned icy. He slipped and fell.

“It’s over,” she said. “Stop this.”

Taako wiped blood from his nose and spit on the floor between them. Then he pulled a knife. It was a bad throw -- Taako was no rogue -- but it caught Lucretia off-guard and struck her in the arm. He cast a quick spray of color in her direction.

Her next wave of force was stronger and sent Taako high into a wall. He hit hard, crumpling to all fours as he hit the ground.

“I said stop!” Lucretia shouted.

Taako glared at her from the ground, one eye squeezed shut from the pain, the other as full of hate as before. “You don’t get to order me around,” he hissed through clenched teeth.

Lucretia gripped the focus in her hand, knuckles white. She couldn’t miss.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” she said, and spun on her heel to swing toward the rocky outcropping above.

Her own Bigby’s Hand, shining brilliant silver, appeared mid-swing and swatted hard across the outcropping. There was a shout of surprise and pain, and a figure in dark robes plummeted to the floor of the cavern.

Behind her, Taako screamed. She turned to find him clutching at his head, eyes cinched shut and tears streaming down his cheeks. When she turned back to where the figure had landed, they were gone.

Seconds later, a clap of thunder struck Lucretia across the back, sending her sprawling to the floor. She shifted her Hand to try and protect her before it was struck by a powerful killing curse, twitching spasmodically before winking out of existence. Her focus grew hot, started burning her hands, and Lucretia dropped it. It briefly strained against the leather cord before snapping free and flying off into a dark corner of the cave.

“Yes, yes,” said a voice, “that is enough, isn’t it?”

Lucretia tried to get to her feet, but another spell knocked her back down. She winced and settled onto her knees as the dark figure approached.

The figure was a woman, a little over forty. Pale skin, dark hair, plain features, average build. She kept her hands wrapped with strips of dark cloth, and her robes were ratty and threadbare. Lucretia had no idea who she was.

“It’s better this way,” she said, voice dripping with malice. “Now I get to do it myself.”

She thrust out a hand -- no catalyst, must be a sorcerer -- and Lucretia could only brace herself for the pain that shot through her mind. It felt like her skull was coming apart in her hands. Her ears rang, and she might have screamed. It ceased as suddenly as it began, and Lucretia collapsed to the ground.

“I wanted to make this personal,” the woman said as Lucretia’s senses returned to her. “I wanted to make you hurt the way you hurt me. But you even had to go and spoil that, didn’t you?”

A boot surged out and kicked her in the chest. Lucretia quickly crawled away.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Who am I?” the woman repeated, voice high and angry. “Who am I?!”

Another kick, though it only grazed. Lucretia flicked her fingers, and a quick burst of lights from Prestidigitation gave her the time she needed to get away. She stood near the entrance to the chamber, the woman in black between her and Taako, still on all fours and clutching his head.

“How did I hurt you?” Lucretia asked, sounding calmer than she felt.

The woman laughed, as vicious and manic as Taako had been just minutes ago. “How do you think? Go on, guess.”

Lucretia shook her head. The woman’s cruel humor disappeared.

“He was so good,” she said, quieter. “He was good, and kind, and he never hurt anyone. And then you took him into that place and you’re the only one who came out.”

The woman in black raised her hand again, and another wave of pain crashed through Lucretia’s mind. She crumpled to her knees, palms squeezing her temples until it ended.

“You took Cam from me!” the woman screamed, her hand still extended, glowing and smoking with residual psionic power. “You left him there to suffer with those -- those things! And when that awful place disappeared, he didn’t come back!”

“I didn’t--”

“Shut up!” She turned and pointed at Taako. “I’m not the only one! I’ve learned that! It’s time you paid for your crimes!”

Lucretia watched as Taako shook his head, trying to clear it. He looked up and stared at the two of them; Lucretia on her knees, the woman in black standing between them. He looked tired, and miserable, and angry. The cold, focused, Taako kind of angry.

“I’m sorry, Taako,” the woman said. “I know I tricked you. But I saw your mind. I know you want the same thing I want. We shared so much while we waited, remember?”

Taako said nothing. He glanced around slowly, taking in the room. His eyes settled on his umbrella, and he dragged it towards him with a Mage Hand.

“You see?” the woman in black said to Lucretia, vicious and triumphant. “It doesn’t matter that you broke the spell. You can’t escape justice.”

Lucretia stared at her, at the furious madness in her eyes as the residual pulses of pain echoed in her skull. She’d been confronted with the results of her actions so many times, she’d lost count. This shouldn’t have been anything new. But her stomach churned all the same.

A martyr. Sometimes it felt like that’s all she was anymore.

Lucretia settled back onto her knees and took a slow breath as Taako got to his feet. He rolled his neck on his shoulders and sniffed, a bit of blood still trailing from his nose.

“You really know how to make friends, huh, Creesh?” Taako said, voice sharp.

The woman in black grinned triumphantly. She stepped aside. “Any final words for your executioner?”

Lucretia sighed. She reached up and brushed her thumb across her eyes.

Maybe Taako was right. Maybe this was inevitable. Maybe she even deserved it, for what she’d done. Saved the multiverse, after all. Mission accomplished. Nothing left for her to do, nothing that someone else couldn’t.

What was there to say that hadn’t already been said?

“If this is how it needs to be.”

Taako stared at her flatly. He raised his staff high and sighted down its length. Lucretia thought about closing her eyes, but the part of her that still refused to admit either fault or defeat couldn’t help but stare him down.

Taako scowled then, looking as angry as he had in the moments after he drank the ichor. He took a long breath, and a glow began to build at the tip of his staff.

“You should have known,” he said, slow and forceful. “No one – _no one_ – messes with my head.”

And then Taako winked.


	3. Reprisal

The Scorching Ray erupted from his staff, but the woman Blinked away before it struck. Taako flicked his wrist and a spectral hand appeared near the corner of the room. It tossed Lucretia her focus as the woman in black reappeared behind Taako, who spun in time to block the bolt she cast.

“Why?!” she shouted furiously. “We want the same thing!”

Taako said nothing. He dropped to one knee and touched the floor, and the ground in front of him became glass. When it reached the woman’s feet, it started to climb up her legs before she disappeared in a puff of smoke.

 _Mislead_ , Lucretia thought, spinning around. The cavern wasn’t so dark and empty anymore -- a dozen identical women in black emerged from the shadows at the edges of the chamber, their hands smoking with pent up power.

Lucretia maneuvered until she and Taako were back to back in the center of the room. They were surrounded.

“Fucking parlor tricks,” Taako hissed. “Amateur hour.”

The arcana in the room shifted, solid and certain.

“I don’t think so,” Lucretia said.

They didn’t have time for words after that. Chaos erupted as the women in black fired spell after spell, eldritch bolts and bursts of flame and cinder. Lucretia counterspelled as best she could, shielding Taako as he fired his missiles with speed and precision before trading off wordlessly, Taako covering her back as Lucretia wiped a group from existence with a Sunbeam.

Most of the duplicates couldn’t take much punishment, and they burst into smoke and dust. But their spells were real, and as their numbers shrank, their power grew.

“You can’t stop justice!” one shouted, and thrust out her hands.

The ground shook. Lucretia leapt to the side as a stalagmite shot up from the earth. Taako pirouetted nimbly out of the way, taking the head off a duplicate with a ray from his staff as he spun.

He didn’t see the stalactite descending.

“Taako!”

Lucretia tried to throw up a Shield before a bolt of pain lanced through her chest. She spun and disintegrated one of the last remaining duplicates into ash before turning back.

Taako dove to the ground as the stalactite speared the earth. He barrel-rolled to the side as another pierced up from beneath, but he couldn’t avoid a third; the stone spire caught him in the back and sent him into the air, and Taako cried out as he hit the ground floor.

The last woman in black advanced towards him. “How could you? She deserves it! You know she does!”

Taako struggled to one knee, clutching his side. The woman raised her hands, engulfed in miasmic tendrils. The air around Taako seemed to shimmer, traceries of electric force starting to catch—

The attack dispelled with a peal of thunder, shaking dust from the ceiling as Lucretia held out her focus. The woman in black bellowed in frustration, turned her hands toward Lucretia, fired a pair of ink-black bolts in her direction. She swatted them away like they were nothing.

“Why won’t you die?!” the woman shouted.

Lucretia stared her down. The focus in her hand began to flicker and pulse in a myriad of colors.

“Don’t feel like it,” she said.

The light burst from her focus like a beam, cascading out in a prismatic wave of shimmering color that lit the cave up like a Candlenights bush. It touched everything in front of her, curving and bending around Taako as he knelt on the floor.

The woman tried to shield herself, but there was no escape. Her screams echoed through the cavern in the handful of seconds before Lucretia ceased her channeling and lowered her focus.

Taako pushed himself to his feet with a wince. He approached the woman first, favoring his side.

Her robes were both frozen and burnt, her hair half-gone or melted into her skin, pocked with fire and acid burns across every inch. She coughed and a bit of bile spilled from her mouth. One of her forearms had been petrified, the other wrapped around her midsection. She crawled backward as Taako approached.

“Wait,” she croaked, her stone hand clicking against the floor. “Listen to me. You know what she deserves. What Cam deserves. We -- we’re kindred spirits, Taako.”

Taako stared down at her. Lucretia stepped closer, and the woman snarled when she looked at her.

“What she’s done – is unforgivable.” She turned to Taako. “She did the same to you. Worse! You – you couldn’t even mourn – I know you understand, I know you do. You told me you did. You told me!”

Taako sniffed disdainfully and looked away, toward the entrance to the cavern and the corridor beyond.

The woman hacked, a bit of spittle foaming at the edges of her mouth. “Taako – Taako, think of your pain. Think of your sister--”

A sudden flash of light and sound.

She was dead before her shoulders hit the ground. Taako took a moment to consider the corpse, perhaps considering a final bon mot. Instead, he merely spit on the floor and walked away.

Lucretia stayed a moment longer, staring at the smoking stump where the woman’s head had been. Her stomach twisted.

Was this her fault too? This woman’s pain? Her death? Could she have prevented it? Should she have?

A martyr.

 _I hope you find peace,_ she thought.

Then she left.


	4. Resolution

Lucretia found Taako outside, sitting on the worn stone steps leading down into the forest with his umbrella beside him. The sun had nearly set, casting an orange glow over everything as it descended beneath the trees to the west.

“No signal,” he said, thumbing at his farspeech stone. “Figures.”

“Think it’s something in the barrows,” Lucretia said, settling down next to him.

“No shit.” He stuck the stone in his pocket and sighed. “How long I been gone?”

“Almost a week.”

He groaned.

“Kravitz only told me,” she said. “Didn’t want to worry everyone if you were just taking an unannounced vacation.”

Taako processed that. “Angus?”

Lucretia shook her head.

“Ol’ bonehead really knows me,” he mumbled. “You got a ride out of here?”

She held up her wrist and her sleeve fell enough to reveal her silver bracer. She touched the Bureau sigil and it blinked blue.

“Won’t be long,” she said. “Clearing’s just down the hill.”

Lucretia rested her elbows on her knees and felt her whole body begin to ache as the adrenaline left her system. “I haven’t felt this sore in a long time,” she said. “Perils of a management position, I suppose.”

“Oh, yeah, tell me more about your pain,” Taako said, sarcasm dripping as he favored his ribs.

Lucretia couldn’t help but chuckle. “Fair enough.”

Silence. A wind blew through the trees and set the boughs shaking. A pair of birds flew out, swooping away. Grackles, maybe. It had been a long time since she’d been birdwatching. Been a long time since she’d done much of anything except work.

“Thanks, by the way.”

Lucretia looked at him. “For what?”

Taako glared at her out of the corner of his eye, irritated at the question. He quickly looked away.

“You didn’t have to come,” he said, softer.

“Of course I did,” Lucretia said. “You’d have done the same for me.”

He snorted. “You sure about that?”

“Yes,” she said, staring at him. “Absolutely.”

Taako glanced at her again, maintaining eye contact a bit longer before looking away. He shifted his legs and winced, one hand still on his ribs.

“Listen…” he trailed off, staring at nothing. “About what I said, back there...”

“You don’t have to—”

“Would you let me fuckin’ finish?” he said.

Lucretia shut her mouth. Taako frowned and spat onto the grass.

“That wasn’t me, alright? It wasn’t. I don’t want you dead.” He thumbed at a ring on his finger. “Anymore.”

Lucretia took that as a compliment, and considering saying as much, but kept silent. Taako stared at the trees and scoffed quietly.

“Can’t believe I couldn’t smell her coming a mile away. She had bad juju all over, that fuckin’ psionic shit? Got me when I was alone, cast that spell, started rambling about her pain or whatever and before I knew it I was rambling right back. She dragged some shit out of me…” He shook his head. “I don’t want to think about it.”

Lucretia shrugged. “Like you said, it wasn’t you.”

Taako nodded and said nothing.

Lucretia leaned back and felt her vertebrae creak. She hadn’t felt her age in decades, but at the moment she felt positively ancient. She thought about telling Taako that, give him something to mock her for, cheer him up.

Taako sniffed and wiped at his bloodied nose with the back of his hand. “Can’t believe you broke my nose.”

She snorted. “Oh, please. It’s not broken.”

“Yeah? You a doctor?”

“Are you?”

Taako sneered. “It’s my nose. I would know.”

Lucretia rolled her eyes and gave up the argument. “Well, that rib is definitely broken.”

“Who cares about that?” Taako said. “Ribs aren’t on my face.”

“So you are a doctor.”

That startled a sound from him that was remarkably like a laugh. Lucretia smiled.

“I am sorry about the nose,” she said. “You weren’t leaving me many options.”

Taako hummed. “Had you on the ropes, huh.”

“For a bit.”

He turned and looked at her again. There was a definite lift at the corner of his mouth.

“C’mon, Lu,” he said. “Be real. Wasn’t even close, was it.”

She closed her eyes and smiled. “You weren’t in your right mind.”

“Don’t fuckin’ patronize me,” Taako said mildly.

“It’s the truth.”

“It’s a dodge. You don’t think I could take you.”

Again, she decided to give up the argument. “Have you ever been able to?”

His brows rose sharply. “Ooh, are those claws I see, pussycat?”

Lucretia flipped him off. Taako laughed again, without cruelty.

“Me-ow,” he said. “You watch it, Lucy. I still got spells to burn.”

“You’re injured,” she said simply. “Wouldn’t be fair.”

“I could break one of your ribs.”

She looked up at the darkening sky and made a show of considering it. “Another time, maybe.”

Taako looked away with a smirk. “Sure, sure.”

In the distance, a second moon became visible in the sky. Lucretia felt a bit warmer by its presence. She had come to love the Bureau, the people there, the work she did. Tainted though it was by bad memories, it was all she had. Most days, it was enough.

But she still didn’t think of it as home. Not really. Lucretia wondered if she ever would.

“Can I ask you something, Taako?” she said. “How long did you want me dead?”

Taako said nothing for a moment. He stared down the steps into the forest, eyes hooded and expression flat.

“After I drank Junior’s leavings?” He shrugged. “‘Forty, forty five seconds.”

Her brows rose. She studied his face, searching for any sign of sarcasm, and found none.

In her periphery, a glass sphere hurtled down towards the clearing. As it slowed and settled beyond the treeline, Taako moved to stand. He struggled for a moment, trying to lean on his umbrella for support.

Lucretia stood and offered a hand. Taako stared at it for a moment before he took it and allowed her to lever him to his feet. He pulled away as soon as he could and started down the steps into the forest. Lucretia followed beside him. Taako took each step slowly, one hand gingerly on his side.

“What was that spa you went to?” Taako asked suddenly. “With Merle?”

Lucretia blinked. “Uh, that’d be the Sunbaths. It’s a hot spring resort in the World’s Teeth. Why?”

“Thinkin’ I’ve earned an actual vacay.” He stepped around a large rock. “I’ll call Skeletor when we get up there, let him know I’m alright. You’ll get one of those fancy Bureau healers to give me a pass, and then I spend a few days getting pampered instead of huddling in a cave with a batshit sorcerer.”

“You do have a spa in your pocket.”

Taako shrugged and winced with the effort. “Sometimes a guy likes a change of venue.”

Lucretia nodded. “I’ll call them myself, set you up.”

A moment passed before Taako spoke again.

“Two-person deal’s probably cheaper,” he said. “Y’know. Overall.”

Lucretia nearly tripped on a root. She stared at him again, convinced this time had to be a joke. Taako steadfastly refused to look at her.

“Really?” she asked.

“Don’t get it twisted,” he said, expression flat. “I’m sayin’ you look like shit and need professional help to solve it. That’s all.”

Lucretia’s first impulse was that he was screwing with her. That this was a trick, that he wanted to drag her along specifically to make her uncomfortable. She should say no, thanks but no thanks, I’m good.

It had been so long since she’d seen him smile at her.

“Okay,” she said. “Sure.”

Taako didn’t respond.

They entered into the clearing with the sphere. Lucretia walked ahead and popped the door open for him.

Taako gestured inside. “Age before beauty.”

Lucretia snorted. She climbed in and took the farthest seat, next to the brake lever. Taako came in after her, pulling the door shut behind him with the handle of his umbrella. He hesitated for just a moment before sitting down, setting his umbra staff in the empty seat between them. Lucretia hit the large button marked ‘RETURN’, and the balloon popped out the top of the sphere and began to inflate.

Taako yawned loudly. “Gonna take a power-nap,” he said, shutting his eyes. “Wake me when we get there.”

“Right.”

Taako slouched and crossed his legs, not bothering with the seatbelt. Lucretia buckled hers and leaned back with a sigh. As the sphere began to rise, she found herself nodding off as well. It had been such a long day.

When she woke, jostled as the sphere was pulled up and into the hangar, she found Taako sitting beside her, his elbow touching hers.


End file.
